New bio uncovers ‘Truthiness’ about Stephen Colbert

The fusion isn't laugh-out-loud funny. But there are plenty of smiles in Lisa Rogak's assemblage of facts and anecdotes.

And Nothing But the Truthiness is the latest in a lengthy list of heavily researched looks by Rogak at pop-culture figures including The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown, Stephen King and the late Shel Silverstein.

Here, Rogak has vacuumed up every detail of the lives of Colbert's parents (who pronounced their name COAL-bert) even before getting to their seventh and youngest child. After the tragic death of his physician father and two older brothers in a plane crash, the nerdy, oft-bullied Stephen discovers his role-playing talents in Dungeons & Dragons.

Rogak follows Colbert through theater school, auditions, marriage, fatherhood, his career launch at Chicago's great comic incubator, Second City, and eventual move to become a comedy writer in New York.

It's well known that Colbert climbed the ranks of writers for Jon Stewart and developed his Bill O'Reilly knockoff character as a correspondent for The Daily Show before spinning off The Colbert Report.

The book is current enough to include his week of live shows from Iraq and the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear on the National Mall last year. Threaded throughout are Colbert's deep ties to his Catholic faith (despite a five-year foray into atheism).

Rogak's Truthiness seems to offer quotes drawn from every interview ever given by or about Colbert, including his self-description to Newsweek in 2006:

"I'm a comedian, not a political thinker. We're changing the world one factual error at a time."

Still, it doesn't appear that any of the interviews were done by Rogak. If she's ever met Colbert in person, you can't tell.

Ironically, one of her best-chosen details is in the photos. See teenaged Colbert with his high school debate team, eyebrow already arched in skepticism, exactly like his image on the Mount Rushmore spoof sketch on the cover.

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